


The Man in the Bar

by Mornelithe_falconsbane



Category: Ancient Egyptian Religion
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-26 07:17:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12552084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mornelithe_falconsbane/pseuds/Mornelithe_falconsbane
Summary: As long as humans have hearts, Ammit will have a purpose--and a hunger that nothing else can sate.





	The Man in the Bar

**Author's Note:**

  * For [phoxinus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoxinus/gifts).



There's a man at the bar nursing a  heavy heart with gin and tonic. He smiles and tries hard to charm, but few seem impressed or interested. The man doesn't seem to notice that no one cares. 

He sits at the bar and watches the world go by without him. It owed him something once, he thinks, and though he can't put his finger on what, he knows it should have been better than this.

The man orders another drink, smiling at the waiter as he thinks up reasons not to tip. There a girl in the corner, and he thinks he'd like to know her. She's got big eyes and she's alone--what more reason does he need?

She sees him coming and he almost loses his nerve. He nearly wanders out the backdoor with his gin and tonic instead of sitting down, but she's alone. What's the worst she could do?

He moves her bag from chair to table to make room for himself. She doesn't smile--in fact, she frowns--and it annoys him. She'd be pretty if she'd smile. She doesn't say anything, and again he nearly loses his nerve. He could walk away from her judging eyes, out the door and down the street and into a river--he'd be cuter if he were dead. The guy from the bar marvels at the strangeness of the thought, but that moment passes.

She is silent--would it kill her to smile?

He takes a sip of his drink, wondering why there's no ice, thinking how the waiter's tip--the one he was never going to pay--is decreasing by the second. 

He waits, unwilling to speak first. He wants to force her to do her damned part in this exchange--let her worry that  _ he _ doesn't like  _ her _ \--he should bite his glass until it shatters between his teeth and swallow the pieces.

The glass squeaks against his teeth before he catches himself, startled and dismayed. His glass is empty--did he drink it all? He must have. Not even the ice is left.

She blinks, and her eyes look different--were they yellow? He breaks eye contact, furious at his sudden desire to run away and never look back. She's just a  _ girl _ . Nothing special, not even all that hot--he refuses to let her intimidate him. 

He cracks first: “Hey.”

She doesn’t reply, and he hates her a little--no he hates her a lot. He deserves better than some asshole invading his space and staring at him. Or--no, that’s not quite right, is it? He sat down at her table, not the other way around. And she should be grateful that he thought she was hot enough to put his heart out there like this. 

Finally she smiles, and she has--a lot of teeth. He blinks and tries to drink from an empty glass, realizing a second later that it was just a trick of the light. She’s a normal girl with normal teeth and normal eyes.

He can’t remember why she has an ostrich feather of all things, but he thinks that maybe that’s normal too. Girls these days love feathers, don't they?

He has two children, and he likes neither. He has a job he embezzles from. He has a wife who he regrets marrying because he knows he could have done better. He has a degree in economics, and a clean criminal record because the charges didn’t stick, and he’s got--so many things. Sure he wants more, but who doesn’t? Why shouldn’t he?

She sighs, and his heart sinks in his chest. The feather--is it floating? No, of course not, she’s holding it with her normal girl hand which is attached to her normal girl arm.

“Fine, bitc--” he can’t quite force the word out, nor infuse it with the derision she deserves for her rudeness.

“Delicious,” she whispers, and her smile grows.


End file.
